Hope everyone is doing great tonight We're excited to be part of this thread, so thank you to Peach for inviting us to host this discussion!!!

(the emoticons are soooo cute)

We watched tonight's episode with Brittany from this season. She is the SWEETEST girl you'll ever meet! and just soooo beautiful in person. You'll love watching her this season. James from Big Brother (if you watch the show) and Keisha winner of Season 18 was with us too!

We wanna know what you think of tonight's episode! Let's start with the $2 million dollar twist!! Phil says at the starting line that the team to win the 1st leg of the race will now get the chance to double down and win $2 million in the final leg! They didn't give an express pass out in tonight's episode. My first thought was that it will be so tough for the team who wins tonight because the other teams might target them. Ryan & Abbie are definitely one of the strongest teams this season so they have a really good shot at the $2 Million!!

So we know it can be done! I like the new twist even though they didn't have it on our season! But I thought the teams would have been more competitive to go get that huge prize. Now if Ryan & Abbie don't win the final leg - they don't get any prize at all for this first leg which that stinks!

Personally i liked this new twist , but i think it should come together with the express pass. It's a bad idea to ....

(SPOILER FROM FURTHER ON THE RACE AHEAD!)

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hand over a express pass on the second leg! why would they do that , really? to give Abbie and Ryan the chance to have 2 million dollars AND the express pass? NO!!!

BTW , i have a question for you guys :

If this twist had happened in Season 19 , do you think you would have still winned at all? Cause teams would definitly target you guys! (sure , you arrived FIRST at both double u-turns so it wouldn't really mattered) ...And because you wouldn't have other teams helping you... (which i don't think it would be a problem for you guys , except maybe in the Borobudur Roadblock)

It's hard to say whether we could have still won the final leg if we had this $2 million twist. I don't know if we would have made any different decisions, since we did our best to make it through each leg anyway! Much of the game is about luck too - and who knows what turn of events could happen differently! Most of the teams didn't really help us out on our season. Everyone was so friendly to each other but once we left the pit start, we knew we were racing against each other. The Buddha challenge was so difficult. Ernie and Justin wanted to work together right away because we knew we weren't first (Andy/Tommy, Zach/Lawrence had already finished) and we knew we were still ahead of all the rest of the teams. When you finish in the middle of the pack, you may as well help each other out. In the end, it was Ernie who figured out the hand motions anyway so he may have been able to complete that challenge on his own.

It's hard to say whether we could have still won the final leg if we had this $2 million twist. I don't know if we would have made any different decisions, since we did our best to make it through each leg anyway! Much of the game is about luck too - and who knows what turn of events could happen differently! Most of the teams didn't really help us out on our season. Everyone was so friendly to each other but once we left the pit start, we knew we were racing against each other. The Buddha challenge was so difficult. Ernie and Justin wanted to work together right away because we knew we weren't first (Andy/Tommy, Zach/Lawrence had already finished) and we knew we were still ahead of all the rest of the teams. When you finish in the middle of the pack, you may as well help each other out. In the end, it was Ernie who figured out the hand motions anyway so he may have been able to complete that challenge on his own.

Duh , i forgot that Ernie was the one who lead that 4-people pack through the roadblock. I really think you would have won the 2 million bucks anyway! Thank you for anwsering!!

Oh that's a really interesting thought!!! To have the $2million get passed down... but then the team that wins the final leg only has to hope that they finished in higher rank than the other two teams running in the final, right? I think the point of the $2million was to create suspense throughout the season, until Ryan & Abbie either win, or get eliminated!

As far as the U-Turn goes... we never wanted to use it The Malawi leg where we didn't use the U-Turn and then Andy & Tommy outran us on the beach was so devastating and our morale was crushed. What wasn't shown was a big bike accident I had during the fish delivery roadblock. You can see the bruises on my legs in the Brussels episode. I had a really tough time running that day and just didn't have the steam in me for that final stretch. Then the next leg was the exact same situation - we were in 1st place with a really strong team just minutes behind us. We know Bill is an awesome manual-car driver (we were not so lucky with our driving skills) so we needed to buy us some time. It was never about targeting a specific team to u-turn, it was just to help us get a moral victory so we could get our heads back in the game. In hindsight, I don't think I would have u-turned anyone so we could hopefully have won that leg fair & square. But, it's a tool in the game for players to use and what's the point of tools if you don't use them?

It's hard to say whether we could have still won the final leg if we had this $2 million twist. I don't know if we would have made any different decisions, since we did our best to make it through each leg anyway! Much of the game is about luck too - and who knows what turn of events could happen differently! Most of the teams didn't really help us out on our season. Everyone was so friendly to each other but once we left the pit start, we knew we were racing against each other. The Buddha challenge was so difficult. Ernie and Justin wanted to work together right away because we knew we weren't first (Andy/Tommy, Zach/Lawrence had already finished) and we knew we were still ahead of all the rest of the teams. When you finish in the middle of the pack, you may as well help each other out. In the end, it was Ernie who figured out the hand motions anyway so he may have been able to complete that challenge on his own.

Duh , i forgot that Ernie was the one who lead that 4-people pack through the roadblock. I really think you would have won the 2 million bucks anyway! Thank you for anwsering!!

Aww you're so sweet! Let's just pretend that we got the double-down!!!

Oh that's a really interesting thought!!! To have the $2million get passed down... but then the team that wins the final leg only has to hope that they finished in higher rank than the other two teams running in the final, right? I think the point of the $2million was to create suspense throughout the season, until Ryan & Abbie either win, or get eliminated!

As far as the U-Turn goes... we never wanted to use it The Malawi leg where we didn't use the U-Turn and then Andy & Tommy outran us on the beach was so devastating and our morale was crushed. What wasn't shown was a big bike accident I had during the fish delivery roadblock. You can see the bruises on my legs in the Brussels episode. I had a really tough time running that day and just didn't have the steam in me for that final stretch. Then the next leg was the exact same situation - we were in 1st place with a really strong team just minutes behind us. We know Bill is an awesome manual-car driver (we were not so lucky with our driving skills) so we needed to buy us some time. It was never about targeting a specific team to u-turn, it was just to help us get a moral victory so we could get our heads back in the game. In hindsight, I don't think I would have u-turned anyone so we could hopefully have won that leg fair & square. But, it's a tool in the game for players to use and what's the point of tools if you don't use them?

OK so what do you think about the teams this season? The first episode is always so tough because there are 11 teams and the airtime gets divided among everyone, so you don't get to really know the teams too well. We've had the chance to meet several racers in person, and chat via email with many of the other racers! This season is so great - such a diverse group.

Here are our initial thoughts... There are several strong teams that could make it far:Ryan & Abbie came out of the gates strong. They are both physically very fit and intelligent so they could potentially do very well. It'll be about staying mentally tough and having some good luck along the way.

Twinnies are so fun to watch already. They have such high energy & spirits. Ernie says they have 'sailor mouths' and you can just read their tweets to realize this is true!

Jaymes & James are the typical alpha male team. If they can work well together, they could get to the final three.

Brittany & Cait are tough gals. Don't be fooled by their beauty, both are very athletic and smart. I hope we get to watch them for awhile!

Amy & Daniel are amazing. we love their spirit and vibe. If they didn't help Ryan & Abbie with the abacus location, they probably could have been in first place.

We didn't get too much of a chance to see all of the teams, so hopefully we will learn more in the next episode. I love that they have Gary & Will on as the 'superfans', it's so fun to watch racers who LOVE the show for what the Amazing Race is all about!

I too would like to know...how do you cope with being the strong team with a target on your back? Did Abbie and Ryan just become the team to beat at all costs...or since they can't win the $2 million, will the other teams care??

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Indonesia is one of the greatest locations! It was such an interesting culture to learn about and the people were quite welcoming there. We had the best taxi driver - Heru - that we still rave about. We wish to go back and visit at a more leisurely pace next time!! For teams that haven't traveled to developing countries, it can be a tough place to navigate. The train stations are quite crowded and when you don't know the language, it can be difficult to communicate with the locals to get directions or any type of help. We did end up drawing pictures quite often in order to convey our urgency and that we were in a race! Indonesia was one of my favorite places that we traveled to. There's so much culture!

Toronto is a great city! We love it there! Cindy used to work in a building at Yonge & Shepphard! This was the first trip we took together - and the place we officially called ourselves 'boyfriend & girlfriend' so it's a very special place for us! There's tons of things to do, you could have a great time in all of the small neighborhoods, or something in the historical buildings, and maybe the pit stop could be the CN tower!

I am SURE Amy & Daniel must be KICKING themselves for telling Abbie & Ryan the location of the woman. They literally were 30 seconds behind (I guess we'll see the real time difference at the start of the next leg). It could have been them with the $2 Million chance!!! I think you could see on Amy's face that she was so disappointed, which is completely understandable.

In the beginning of the race, you just really don't know when to / when not to help others out. The first few legs of the race, we were helping other teams all the time. Whenever we had information, Cindy would tell anyone near us. Finally Ernie got so fed up with always sharing information and not many reciprocating, that we stopped helping others. You just never know and those first few legs, you're just meeting people and you don't want them to have a bad impression of you, so you help them. But if we raced again, we probably wouldn't tell the other teams anything! Information is a huge advantage in the game!